Printing devices, such as and inkjet printer, typically contain at least one wiper apparatus for cleaning one or more printheads of ink cartridges. The printhead fires ink through a plurality of nozzles in the nozzle plate of the printhead and a wiper of the wiper apparatus wipes the plurality of nozzles between print jobs to prevent the nozzles from clogging.
In some printer devices each printhead has a separate nozzle plate and each nozzle plate has a separate wiper apparatus for wiping the nozzle plate to prevent cross-contamination of inks and to reduce the incidence of clogging. The use of separate nozzle plates and wiper apparatuses to prevent ink clogging can be very costly. In other printer devices two adjacent wipers of one or more wiper apparatus, are used to clean adjacent nozzles of a single nozzle plate. In some applications cross-contamination of inks along adjacent wipers causes increased clogging of the nozzles which is undesirable.